A new FTS client, RetireLife, has been working with our UI team to launch a website for their start-up company.  FTS’ user interface web designers are now in the final stages of creating a comprehensive website, designed to fully support Retire Life’s business model to get the company up and running.  The young entrepreneurs behind RetireLife are a group of Babson students whose entrepreneurial objective grew out of their own personal experiences with friends and family members; they recognized the struggle their parents’ generation was experiencing as their grandparents aged.  There were very few resources available to their parents, (the Baby-Boomer Generation,) who have become the caretakers of their aging parents.  These Babson students realized that they, Generation Y, would inherit this same problem fifteen to thirty years from now, when their parents, (from the even bigger Baby Boomer Generation,) grow older and need the same type of care.  RetireLife.com helps assuage the tension and anxiety surrounding the very difficult, sensitive issue of caring for our aging loved ones. Read more

Lukas Mathis has written a short but insightful piece on the idea that simple designs for icons and action related UI makes more sense. His conclusions also reminded me of some of the studies done on faces and body shape as it relates to attractiveness. The retention of juvenile characteristics or Neoteny suggests that the retaining the basic look or shape of the child or immature version has the outcome of making it more attractive to our visual brains.

A great example of this is the evolution of the Mickey Mouse character. In 1978, Stephen Jay Gould theorized that Walt Disney and his animators gradually discovered what it took evolutionary psychologists decades to prove: that baby-like features and proportions elicit an “automatic surge of disarming tenderness” in adults.

Simple UI or icons offer more inferred information as opposed to prescriptive. The simpler the icons the more likely we are to throw them into a general category instead of wondering which action or quality to ascribe to them. As Lukas Mathis points out, “People are confused by symbols if they have too many or too few details. They will recognize UI elements which are somewhere in the middle.”

While you were sipping bubbly and counting down the last moments of 2009, we brought in the New Year with what else but the launch of a new website.  XtraXtra.com went live January 1^st and is already getting “dugg” by users. We designed a personalized news site for Xtra Xtra that allows users to search for and share personal news and professional milestones with friends, neighbors, colleagues, etc..

The project involved a complete design overhaul of the existing site. We restructured the entire site to improve upon elements of functionality and navigability. The client provided market research and focus group feedback that allowed our designers to create a user-friendly, aesthetically appealing interface. Usability is always a central consideration when we implement new designs, but it’s especially paramount to the success of a website (like Xtra Xtra,) that’s inherently based on personalization and user interaction.

New features were added to make the site Xtra Xtra customized (…clever, I know). A geo-location element was added to detect the user’s location and provide highly-localized, relevant content—much like Citysearch does. A Facebook Connect feature was added that allows users to login via their Facebook account, and distribute site content around the web; for example, you can comment on another user’s “milestone” and it will stream directly to their Facebook account feed.

Lots of other changes, improvements, and revisions went down during this three month project schedule.  But let’s skip to the happy ending– check out the before/after shots below:

Before                                                                                            After

Yesterday I watched Sherlock Holmes and loved it. The movie was true to Sir Conan Doyle’s dark and dirty London without all the typical Hollywood crap we’ve grown accustomed to. The witty dialogue between Holmes and Watson caught my attention from a designer’s point of view.

Two things that Holmes said that are extremely relevant to the art and science of design are “the devil is in the details” and “don’t find facts to back up your theories, find facts to construct your theories”. I’m paraphrasing of course but you get the idea. The first quote is obvious and doesn’t really need additional explanation but the second one is the cornerstone of successful design projects.

We are all guilty of creating theories that support our own biases. In our roles as strategic designers we hear these types of things all the time. There is nothing more damaging to good UI design than statements like “I feel like our clients would want this feature” or “I’ve heard that features like this are really popular”. When we hear these general and emotional responses or suggestions we ask where the data is to support that idea or ‘feeling’. Is the data from a respectable source? Where else have we seen this feature and how successful was it in achieving the site’s or app’s goals? Are their user experience tests or best practices that support that idea?

Love the data. It’s more rewarding than falling in love with your own ideas.

This sticker on a product I bought recently got me thinking – “Visual imperfections will not affect performance”. I wonder how many websites we would sell if we didn’t take responsibility for imperfections? Not too many I suspect.

Our clients and development partners, Janeiro Digital, have just launched their new site. The site is built entirely on WordPress giving them amazing control over the content across all areas of the site. I really like the simplicity of the design and layout (thanks Kristy!). What makes this project interesting for both us and the client is that because of the flexibility of WordPress, and the associated plug-ins, we could create a full-enabled CMS driven site with a totally custom design in just a few short weeks.

Yesterday the team at Vlingo launched the new site we created alongside the talented designer Henry Brown. The site is a huge step forward in terms of usability and overall design aesthetics. Our Flash guru, Dave Newbury, was able to create an interesting phone selection mechanism that both functions intuitively and looks great. Kevin Leary, our senior UI master, worked his magic on the code to make the entire site, including the social network feeds, run smoothly. Thanks to all involved.

There are a few golden rules to creating a successful social network around your business, product or movement. Using a collection of best practice ideas and success stories, including the Obama Presidential and Zappo’s campaign strategies, I have created a list of activities and ideas that will drive the creation and ongoing growth of your social network. Here are the key elements.

1. If you are trying to reach a consumer audience then building big databases of customers is essential. Big doesn’t always mean better and it’s easy to get distracted by the numbers. Quality of the group is essential too.
2. Know everything about your audience. Ask them to share their ideas, feelings, doubts, suggestions and comments on the things that you do. Sites like QuickSprout, Signal vs Noise and Mint.com are great at starting conversations that leave a trail of new ideas and insights for the blog or network owners.
3. Connect online and offline events as if they belonged to the same network. Having only an online presence is not enough. You need to link the virtual networks with the real networks and bring those worlds together in any way you can.
4. Build channels to capture data everywhere. Twitter is a great example of a ‘listening tool’ that helps you gather information on your audiences activities. Facebook and FriendFeed are other good ways to listen in on your audience and even start new discussions.
5. Within every network, virtual and real, are activists, evangelists and mavens. Identify them, communicate with them if possible and figure out how to inspire and excite them.
6. Connect the members together in as many ways as possible. In smaller networks create opportunities for the members to communicate and meet face-to-face. In larger networks give them ways to organize themselves and find like-minded members. Organize events or small parties that help customers meet each other and strengthen bonds with your brand or movement.
7. It’s important to remember that there are already lots of membership groups. Find them and give them the tools to connect. Empower them in the places and spaces where they are already connected and spending time. In many cases you won’t need to create your own networks or groups.
8. Give them something to do by organizing activities and purpose for the groups. Don’t leave things to chance or they might become orientated around ideas and activities that don’t align with your positioning.

We have been surveying our clients with short informal phone calls that ask questions like "what’s the one thing you’d like us to do more of?" or "what made you want to work with us in the first place?" For me the surprise has been that our clients often work with us because we make the complex things seem more simple. Now what do you do with information like that? How can you package that? Can you even package simple explanations in a way that they become both valuable and viral?

Lee Lefever at Common Craft has done exactly that. Check out how they have made the difficult easy…

The only sad thing is that they are no longer accepting custom work. Opportunity knocks?

My job is to sell design. It’s made easier by the fact that almost all of our clients come to us looking for a design solution. We’re not selling design as much as selling the value of the specific solutions we’ll be implementing with each client. It’s very unusual these days to find a client that doesn’t understand the value of a well designed web experience.

Here’s the weird thing. Even though there is an almost universal acceptance that design is as important to business success as a comprehensive business strategy some designers fail to see themselves as part of the sales process. I still come across so many designers that think of themselves as designers and not as salespeople. Apparently sales and marketing are still considered swear words in most designer’s heads. Sales is not only necessary for designers to understand but they have to embrace it to be find the channels for their creativity. I came across this posting by Christopher Fahey at Behavior which explains my frustration so much more eloquently:

A designer who neglects marketing concerns and designs a product that the target audience sees as undesirable (because, for example, it lacks a sexy list of features or a glossy interface) is just as bad as a designer who neglects production concerns and creates something that is prohibitively expensive and time-consuming to build (to manufacture, program, whatever).